


Decided To Dip And Now You Wanna Trip (Cause Another Brother Noticed Me)

by cuikune



Series: All The Single Ladies [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Darcy's boobs are totally a superpower, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 13:24:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuikune/pseuds/cuikune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy is absolutely sure that her boobs are really her super power. Everyone who says otherwise really doesn't have a leg to stand on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decided To Dip And Now You Wanna Trip (Cause Another Brother Noticed Me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burningchaos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burningchaos/gifts).



Darcy doesn’t actually come up with the ‘my boobs are a super power’ thing on her own. That revelation could be laid squarely at Thor’s feet. Human!Thor’s feet even. He and Erik had gotten drunk (again) and come stumbling back to the lab to offer suggestions on Jane’s research. It was kind of hilarious watching them try to be helpful. Fortunately for all of them, Jane was too smitten with Thor to actually mind or there would have been things thrown and people banned from the lab like that one time Darcy had come into work without drinking coffee first.

 

“Darcy,” Thor comments suddenly, interrupting Erik’s monologue about how Jane needs to add another _x_ to some equation on her board, “your breasts are unlike any I’ve ever seen on a woman.”

 

The conversation stops completely at his pronouncement as everyone considers this. Darcy can’t help but look down at her boobs, which are peeking out of her scoop necked shirt. She’d had a jacket on earlier in an attempt to look respectable (a very hard thing to pull off with her breasts) but she’d lost it a few hours ago when she’d had her umpteenth espresso of the day.

 

“Does that mean you’ve seen breasts like mine on something that wasn’t a woman?” she can’t help but ask, and Erik makes a distressed noise as soon as she says it. Jane actually puts down her marker and rests her chin in her hand she’s so interested in the answer. Darcy sort of wants to hit her for it.

 

Thor nods enthusiastically. “On a giantess! A fine specimen of her breed she was too. Made a bid for my brother’s hand.” A cloud passes over his face for a moment at the mention of his brother, but before she can say anything or apologize for bringing up bad memories he shakes his head and grins again. “Father was all for accepting her suit but Mother would not hear of it. She said Loki was too delicate to be bearing such children as a giantess would give him.”

 

Darcy turns that statement over in her head a few times. Jane and Erik do too apparently because after the silence has dragged on for several long seconds Erik’s eyes cross and he slips from his chair in a dead faint. Darcy can’t really blame him.

 

“So,” she says nonchalantly, or at least striving for it, “boys in Asgard can have babies then?” This is, not surprisingly, news. She’d known, they’d all known, that be them gods or aliens Asgardians were built differently than humans, but this was beyond mind boggling. And also awesome, now that she thinks about it.

 

Thor shakes his head and almost falls over, grabbing the metal table next to him at the last second. “Only those with seiðr, sorcerers,” he elaborates when Darcy only looks confused. “My brother is the first to be born with true magic in many years. We had forgotten about the physical gifts their magics gift them with. Our allies were greatly pleased when they found out and many bid for his hand. It is a great honor in many cultures to have a mate who is male.”

 

“But not in Asgard?” Darcy ventures, because Thor’s voice had turned sad near the end of his explanation.

 

“No,” Thor agrees, looking sad. “Not in Asgard.”

 

“Back to the giantess,” Jane pipes up, breaking the awkward silence. Darcy shoots her a look of relief when Thor visibly brightens.

 

“Her bosom was almost as ample as yours, Lady Darcy!” Thor enthuses, waving one hand in the direction of her chest. Darcy grins and shakes her head.

 

“I think she meant the fact that giantesses can impregnate people,” Darcy tells him, grin still in place. Thor is easy to talk to, eager to please and slow to take offense, even when he isn’t drunk.

 

“The males of the giants bear the children,” Thor explains. “Male giants are smaller and not as skilled in the arts of battle, so they worked a spell to transfers the well of life into themselves from their females. It has worked well for them.”

 

“So basically, my boobs are awesome?” Darcy asks just to be sure. He could be implying that she’s part giant, he _was_ crazy like that.

 

“Indeed, Lady Darcy,” Thor agrees, nodding too hard and falling over. When he doesn’t get up after a few seconds she leans over to take a look at him. He’s splayed out on the floor, his mouth open. After another few seconds, he snores. Darcy shares an exasperated but fond look with Jane, who grins in agreement before dragging over another whiteboard to try reworking the equation the way Erik suggested.

 

-

 

Normally, she would be all for taking a god’s word for something, but Jane has been a bad influence on her, so she decides to experiment a little with the idea before declaring it for everyone to hear.

 

Her first victim, um, variable, is Erik. He’d woken up with a splitting headache and claimed no memory of anything beyond leaving the bar with Thor, which was bullshit because when Jane had (with prompting from Darcy) mournfully commented on the fact that it meant he wouldn’t be able to further explain his math, he’d winced.

 

Darcy lays patiently in wait until lunchtime. Erik didn’t have breakfast, so she knows he won’t do his usual ritual of grabbing a few energy bars on the go. When he glances at the clock then starts to shut down his station and puts on his jacket, she quickly schools her expression to one of uncertainty and sadness. Erik has been avoiding the three of them like the plague ever since he woke up on the floor with Thor using his stomach as a pillow, but he glances at her on his way to the door. He stops walking and Darcy can see him struggling with himself out of the corner of her eye. She gives a silent cheer and smirks inside when he visibly braces himself and turns toward her.

 

“Is something wrong, Darcy?” he asks, and Darcy pretends to start.

 

“No,” she says, unconvincingly.

 

“You can tell me if something is wrong, Darcy.” He pats her on the shoulder. “I’m here to listen.”

 

“I was just thinking about what Thor said about me last night, that’s all,” she tells him after pretending to think about it and nodding reluctantly.

 

Erik pales and swallows convulsively. “What Thor said last night?” he says, voice thin.

 

“Oh,” she says, looking and sounding apologetic. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I know it bothers you that you don’t remember.”

 

She has to give him credit, because he rallies. “What did he say to you that’s got you so down, sweetheart?”

 

She bites her lip to keep from smiling. He had fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. Luckily he took her action as uncertainty and patted her shoulder again. She took a deep breath to keep from laughing and said her next words quickly. “That my boobs are freakish.”

 

Whatever he had been expecting her to say, that clearly wasn’t it. His eyes widened almost comically and his gave dropped involuntarily to her breasts. She gives a mournful sigh and his eyes shoot to her face again, his face heating.

 

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Darcy asks, sounding sad. “All this time my boobs have given off vibes of freaky and no one has ever told me. Do you think I could afford a breast reduction?”

 

Erik, for his part, looks absolutely horrified. “No!” he says sharply, using his grip on her shoulder to turn her to face him and take both her shoulders in her hands. “You should absolutely not do that. Think that,” he corrects. Darcy gives him a small grin, which makes him relax.

 

“You really don’t think so?” she asks, because while she has the data she needs, this is funny as hell.

 

“No,” he says again, this time more firmly. “I’m sure that Thor didn’t mean to make you think your breasts are freakish or freaky, Darcy. He just meant that your breasts are…” he flails around for suitable words. “Very nice,” he settles on, eyes flicking down to them and back up again. “And that he hopes that you know how much they should be…appreciated.”

 

She gives him a sunny smile. “Ok,” she agrees, slipping out from under he hands and out of her chair. She grabs her jacket and slips it on, because while it’s hot as fuck outside, it’s better to have all your limbs covered to avoid getting baked like a lobster. “Let’s get burgers for lunch!” she calls over his shoulder cheerfully, and has to bite her lip to keep from laughing the entire time they’re out, because Erik can’t keep his eyes off her chest.

 

-

 

The next person she sacrifices on the altar of science is Thor himself. I mean, ya, he was the one who pointed out the idea in the first place, but still. Darcy was curious. It takes her a few days to come up with a plan of ~~attack~~ action, but she finally comes up with the perfect plan.

 

Thor seems to like the roof almost as much as she does, so it’s pretty easy to find him up there alone.

 

“Thor,” she says, walking over to the edge of the roof and dropping down next to him, “what exactly would you be willing to do for the privilege of touching my boobs?”

 

Thor glances at her boobs without shame, looking thoughtful. “Do I have to decide now?”

 

“I meant hypothetically, cuz I’m pretty sure Jane would be mad if she found out you were cheating on her with my boobs.”

 

Thor looks mournful for a moment but rallies back quickly. “I would climb the World Tree and bring you back a golden fruit of power,” he decides, nodding.

 

“That’s hard, right?” Darcy asks.

 

“Very few warriors have set off on such a quest and returned alive, much less bearing the fruit!” Thor boomed. “But it is a worthy trial and I would happily undertake it to win your favors!”

 

“Awesome,” Darcy said, echoing her words from the other night. “Thanks Thor, that was really helpful.” She gets up heads over to the ladder to climb down and get back to work, but Thor's voice stops her.

 

“If I somehow fail in my quest to win the lovely Jane’s heart, may I undertake such a task for you?” Thor asks, looking hopeful.

 

Darcy laughs and nods her head without thinking about it. “Sure big guy. I’d be honored.”

 

“The honor is mine, Lady Darcy,” Thor says seriously, and Darcy grins at him again before heading down into the lab. The warm feeling his words gave her stay with her the rest of the day as she plots her next experiment.

 

-

 

Ok, so maybe the ‘boobs are a super power’ thing is totally her. To be fair, she was drunk. Really, really drunk. And it wasn’t actually a big jump from ‘fan-fucking-tastic rack’ to ‘can be used to fight evil’, because when you can walk into a room and have men lose all ability to think clearly you definitely have something going on. Some superheroes got by on less. The only problem was that no one was likely to support her induction into superhero-hood. Be that as it may, it wasn’t any less true.

 

-

 

Then she meets Tony Stark. It’s like someone is watching out for her. Possibly Thor, considering his love affair with her breasts but she isn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

-

 

“I think my boobs qualify as super powers,” Darcy comments thoughtfully. She’s finally secure enough in the knowledge of this that she’s ok with telling Tony this, months of experiments having been successful. There hadn’t been a single failure on her part to entice people with her boobs, not even when she’d used a gay man as a variable.

 

Tony gives her boobs an appreciative glance (the day Tony Stark doesn’t stop to appreciate the female figure is the day they realize he’s been replaced with a robot replica) but shakes his head.

 

“I don’t think so. I mean, you have great boobs,” and he makes a gesture indicating that they are in fact, _fantastic_ boobs, “but I don’t think you could fight evil with them.”

 

“I could,” Darcy pouts. Probably anyway.

 

“Ya? How about a bet?” Tony’s eyes light up. He loves bets almost as much as Clint (who has a legit gambling problem, no matter how much he denies it) even though he loses more often than he wins.

 

“Sure. When I win, you have to admit that my boobs have super powers. And back me up with other people when they don’t believe me.”

 

“And when _I_ win, you have to go topless for a week,” Tony counters. Darcy grins, because hey. That’s how she got this job in the first place, isn’t it?

 

(To be perfectly fair, Pepper informed her going in that if Tony didn’t hire her, she would. Tony had been...well, kind of professional. He had at least _asked_ about her qualifications before making unsubtle comments about how hot it was in the room. And let’s be honest here, it was Tony Motherfucking Stark - she had just shrugged and taken off her blouse. He’d spent the rest of the ‘interview’ staring at her breasts and she had managed to get a position at S.H.I.E.L.D. out of him, instead of the position of his personal assistant because there wasn’t enough money in the world to convince her to take _that_ job. She still has no idea how he’d managed to pull off whatever he had to get her on the pay roll at S.H.I.E.L.D. because she was pretty sure he wasn’t allowed to hire for them. But she’d shown up at work her first day and no one had commented on it, so the entire thing was a win in her book.)

 

“So what’s the bet?” she asks, which, in hindsight, should have been the first question.

 

“Coulson,” Tony says with an evil grin. Darcy narrows her eyes at him.

 

“Fine,” she says, because she’s confident in her assets. She hops off her desk and heads down the corridor towards Coulson’s office, hearing Tony scrambling to follow behind her.

 

She catches Coulson as he’s heading into his office, which is perfect.

 

“Agent Coulson!” she calls, and undoes the buttons on her shirt. She tosses a grin over her shoulder at Tony as Coulson turns around.

 

“I think I need a raise,” she announces, and pulls her shirt open. Coulson, no matter what else he is, is a man. He looks.

 

“Ms. Lewis,” he starts, raising his eyes from her breasts, but she draws his attention back by cupping them.

 

“I have to buy custom made bras,” she tells him, running her fingers along the cup of her bra for emphasis. “The normal ones never fit and it’s kind of expensive getting them made. I’m almost to the point where I have to come to work braless.” Tony makes an inarticulate noise behind her.

 

Coulson’s eyes, she’s pleased to see, are glued to her breasts. He clears his throat a few times and attempts to look away, but he never quite manages it.

 

“Yes,” he says, clearing his throat again and finally dropping his gaze to the files he’s holding. “Yes, I think a raise is in order.”

 

He beats a quick retreat, shuffling through the papers in his hands and muttering about adding a stipend for clothing and other essentials. Darcy grins again and does up the buttons of her shirt.

 

“So,” Tony says, clearing _his_ throat (apparently even the reflection of her boobs is magical), “Your breasts have super powers.”

 

“Told you so,” Darcy tells him, sauntering away.

 

-

 

She actually met Clint for the first time in Arizona, when he confiscated her iPod.

 

-

 

But the first time she _actually_ met him was when Tony asked her to retrieve Hawkeye (seriously?) so he could show him his new (and improved, obviously) bow. She didn’t recognize him because he was wearing some sort of purple outfit ( _purple_ ) and his muscles were kind of distracting. Also, purple. Who wore purple? Other than Magneto, who had his fashion sense removed at birth.

 

The point was, she didn’t recognize him until Tony mentioned that they had already met. Well, she actually still didn’t recognize him at that point, but then he winced.

 

“You bastard!” she shrieks, because she _still_ doesn’t have her iPod back. The fact that she could have bought a new one was beside the point. He winces again, probably at the decibel her voice hit.

 

“Where is it?” she demands, and Hawkeye (again, seriously?) looks alarmed.

 

“Darcy?” Tony asks, concerned, and she rounds on him with a glare.

 

“That _bastard_ confiscated my iPod!” she yells, stabbing a finger in _that bastard’s_ direction. “And I _still don’t have it back_!”

 

“Well that was stupid of you, Barton,” Tony tells the other man.

 

“I was following orders!” Barton (the bastard) protests. Darcy glares at him again and crosses her arms under her breasts, which distracts him from his pointless lies. She smirks when he swallows heavily.

 

“I’ll, uh, make it up to you?” he tries, and Darcy’s smirk turns evil. _Super powers_ , she mouths at Tony over the bastard’s shoulder. Barton doesn’t even notice; too busy trying to undo the buttons of her shirt with his eyes.

 

“Great, I want it back by the end of the day,” she says cheerfully, turning as if to walk away. She counts under her breath as she starts walking.

 

“Wait, no,” Barton says after she’s made it six steps. She turns around slowly and raises an eyebrow, smirk carefully wiped off her face. She’s rewarded by his heavy swallow and his complete inability to keep his eyes off her breasts.

 

“No?” she repeats, crossing her arms over her breasts. He makes a disappointed note low in his throat which Darcy does not find attractive. At all.

 

“I don’t have the authorization to do that,” he explains to her boobs. She taps her foot until he raises his eyes to her face and fixes her face with a scowl. He blanches and Darcy scowls harder.

 

“I. Want. It. Back. By. The. End. Of. The. Day.” She enunciates each word carefully and feels the warm glow of satisfaction in her chest when he nods frantically.

 

“End of the day,” he repeats, and she rewards him by uncrossing her arms and hopping up on Tony’s work table so he can ogle her while Tony explains to him exactly why he can never trust those fuckers in Requisition, Research, and Development to give him a good weapon.

 

-

 

It’d only been a bit after lunchtime when she’d informed him of the penance that was required for his sins, and she was pleasantly surprised to find her iPod on her desk and Barton nowhere in sight only two hours later when she got back from raiding the break room fridge. Then she remembers what his job was and tilts her head, considering. Deciding to fuck it, she unbuttons the top two buttons of her blouse before settling down to slog through another pile of reports that needed filing with her much missed ‘Slytherin Pride’ playlist playing.

 

She could have been imagining it, but she was pretty sure she heard an appreciative noise from somewhere beyond the water cooler before Lady GaGa’s Starstrukk started playing. She grins to herself as she opens up a new spreadsheet and starts entering in data from the first report.

 

-

 

Somewhat to her surprise, her boobs were actually super powers. It was one thing to claim it and use them as a distraction technique to get things, but quite another to use them to defeat a super villain.

 

Well, she’s surprised for about five seconds and then she sort of laughs hysterically, much to the confusion of Dr. Doom, who was in the process of asking her if there was anything he could do for her, steal her a building, whisk her away to a tropical island, anything?

 

This of course captures the attention of Loki, who is apparently on babysitting duty, judging by his put upon sigh when he notices Doom’s glazed and adoring expression. Then he notices her and…well, smirk is not an adequate word to describe the look on his face. It’s as if someone distilled the essence of a smirk and then gave it to him.

 

It totally shouldn’t have been was hot as it was.

 

Dr. Doom makes an aborted motion, as if he was going to block him, but Loki glares at him and he backs off with a disgruntled expression.

 

“You’re Thor's little pet, aren’t you?” Loki says, sounding more curious than homicidal.

 

Darcy spends a few moments in blind panic before getting a hold of herself. The Avengers will be here soon. She hopes. She draws herself up.

 

“No, that would be Jane,” she manages to get the words out without fainting, which is awesome.

 

Loki waves a dismissive hand. “You mortals all look alike to me.”

 

Doom makes an angry noise, drawing their attention. “She does not look like other women!” He practically yells it, taking a step closer to Loki, causing Loki to raise his eyebrows in disbelief. He looks over her again, head to toe and back up, then makes a humming sound.

 

“Interesting,” is all he says, turning away to order his minions to do…something.

 

Luckily the Avengers choose that moment to show up and Darcy is spared Dr. Doom’s further attempts to woo her. God, wasn’t that was a horrible mental image?

 

She’s expecting…she has no idea what she’s expecting, actually, but it certainly isn’t for Loki to wink at her and transport himself and all the minions away, leaving Doom all by his lonesome.

 

Steve and Thor look really freaked out and start yelling ‘Unhand her villain!’, which, you know, is kind of adorable.

 

She taps Doom on the shoulder. He stops yelling back at them immediately and spins to face her. She bats her eyelashes and his expression blanks.

 

“It would make me really happy if you turned yourself over to them,” Darcy says, smiling sweetly at him. He nods blankly and zombie walks over to Tony, who slaps a pair of restrictor cuffs on him, looking a bit freaked out. Everyone else is giving her strange looks.

 

She shrugs. “Think I qualify for combat pay?”

 

-

 

Thor insists that drinking is required after being blooded in battle (there wasn’t any blood anywhere, which Natasha of all people points out, but Thor insists it counts) and Darcy is willing to go along with it because, hey, free drinks! Plus the whole ‘drinking with the Avengers’ thing. After intense negotiations, they decide that Steve is designated driver.

 

(They were only intense because Natasha wanted to be it, but Steve won by dint of not being able to get drunk.)

 

They pile into a couple of Tony’s many cars (Darcy, Thor, and Steve in one; Tony, Clint, Natasha, and Bruce in the other. Steve and Tony drive, much to the disappointment of her and Clint.) and go trolling around the city looking for a suitable club. They end up at _The Slightly Bent Sword_ , because Thor had seen it and hadn’t been able to stop giggling and Tony had got that look on his face that meant he was thinking something dirty.

 

Despite the fact that it sounded pretentious, it had been surprisingly upscale inside, the only concessions to the name being the costumes the employees wore. Thor had been pleased with their accuracy, the women wearing belted tunics and the men in leather armor.

 

There weren’t any flashing lights and the bass didn’t make the floor shake, even though the music was some unfathomable mix of rock and pop. In fact, Darcy was almost entirely certain every song was a custom mash-up that the DJ (who was wearing mail armor) made up as he went along. All in all, it was pleasant. The moment they make it inside, Thor promptly heads for the bar, and if Darcy is correct in her assumptions, he was going to demand a cask of their finest ale. She follows him to the bar to rescue the barman from his enthusiasm.

 

She reaches the bar just as Thor opens his mouth to demand his cask and pats him on the arm before he can get started. He turns to her with a questioning expression.

 

“I got this big guy,” she tells him, squeezing in between him and the bar to prevent the skivvy looking dude on the nearest barstool from groping her.

 

She nods at the guy behind the bar, who is looking at Thor with a rapt expression on his face. He nods back, managing to drag his attention away from Thor's bulging muscles to focus on her order.

 

“A bottle of Everclear, some sort of Tequila, a bottle of Grey Goose, and a bottle of Jack,” she rattles off, and she smirks when he opens his mouth to inform her she can’t actually buy a bottle of Everclear before changing his mind and shutting his mouth again. “And a watermelon daiquiri,” she adds as an afterthought. “And some rum.”

 

He pulls out a tray and piles on the drinks and by the time he’s done, she’s pleased to see that she’s got everything she ordered, including a bottle each of white and gold rum and tequila. He’d even provided glasses.

 

Thor picks it up and carries it for her without her even having to ask, which causes Bar Guy’s eyes to glaze over again. They make it back to the table without incident, even though the club is crowded.

 

“So, drinks,” she tells everyone, which causes Tony to perk up and abandon his texting. She raises an eyebrow at him in question and he mouths ‘Bucky’ at her with a smirk, eyes flicking in Steve’s direction. Tony was such an awesome boyfriend. She could never decide which of them she was more jealous of: Steve and Bucky for scoring someone who could quite literally give them the world on a platter, or Tony, who had managed to score Captain America _and_ the Winter Soldier. She usually just settled for general jealousy.

 

She waits until everyone has had a drink before dropping her bombshell.

 

“Dancing,” she announces much to the horror of Dr. Banner and Clint. Tony gives her a knowing look and she nods back at him because yes, he’s totally exempt. Thor is…not allowed to dance, ever. Natasha Doesn’t Dance, which Darcy isn’t going to argue with. That leaves Steve and Bozo and Mr. Green, and Darcy totally knows which door she’s picking.

 

Steve, who was looking morosely into his drink, (poor guy, Darcy can’t imagine what life must be like without the ability to get totally plastered) follows her obediently (no puppy jokes, ever, even inside her own head because her brain to mouth filter doesn’t always work) onto the dance floor when she grabs his hand.

 

Steve knew how to dance. It surprised her (and everyone else) when they found out about this, but it shouldn’t have because the man was quite literally perfect at everything. Then again, what could you expect from someone who grew up with a playboy like Bucky? Darcy has no doubt that he had been the one to teach Steve to do those amazing things with his body. It was kind of a pity that he was taken, cuz Darcy would love to roll around in bed with Bucky for a few days. Maybe she could convince Tony to tape their escapades for her sometimes? Or better yet, convince Fury that a few ‘adult videos’ featuring the actual Avengers would be good PR and bring in some cash. God knew that was enough amateur porn out there featuring the ‘Avengers’. They’d even got that actor from the Sherlock Holmes movies to play Tony and the resemblance was downright uncanny. She was having a devil of a time keeping that video away from him too, because the last thing they needed was Tony hiring the guy to take his place at official functions.

 

Anyway, dancing was just what the doctor ordered after a long, stressful, villain filled day, and Darcy was never one to contradict the people keeping her alive and well. The DJ has some crazy combination of Red and Linkin Park going, Darcy can hear strains of both ‘Bleed It Out’ and ‘Let It Burn’ in the beat they’re moving to.

 

She has no idea how long they’re on the floor, moving with each other and the crowd and with the invisible waves of sound that move around them, but sometime after they’re both drenched in sweat someone taps on her shoulder. She turns around and squeals, because it’s Bucky.

 

Darcy…to say that Darcy likes Bucky is an understatement. Darcy fucking _loves_ Bucky, in a nearly platonic way, except for the part where she wants to jump his bones. But it’s a very low level lust and she would never ever consider coming between them, she adores Steve (really, no puppy jokes), and as far as she is concerned Tony should qualify for some of those nifty golden apples that Asgard is hoarding. Getting to hang out with Bucky makes her day the majority of the time.

 

“This dance taken or is anyone welcome to join in?” Bucky drawls with a cocky smirk, and god, that accent. It does things to her. Amazing things. Things that she can’t mention in polite company or around Steve.

 

“Not taken,” she shouts over the music, twisting so her hip brushes against his. He insinuates himself into their space with ease, effortlessly bridging them, and their dancing goes from hot to _scorching_.

 

They stumble out of the press of bodies a while later to drop in a giant heap at their table.

 

This is probably the first time she actually takes notice of Clint Barton beyond the fact that she thinks he’s a bozo. He’s glaring. Quite hard in fact, at Bucky and Steve. Darcy blinks.

 

She starts to say something about it, but Thor chooses that moment to come back from fucking the adorable guy that got them their drinks. Darcy loves Thor. She really, really does. And it’s in a platonic way this time, because there is no way she is ever opening the can of worms that is Thor and Loki’s relationship. _Ever_. Despite what Jane thinks, tasing gods turned humans aside, she has a highly developed self preservation instinct. But what she loves most about Thor is the fact that all those crazy conservative politicians that spout off that shit about how being gay will get you sent to hell are having a hard time keeping up their arguments with an actual god fucking anything pretty that smiles at him. It’s kind of hilarious.

 

“Lady Darcy, I require permission to request music from the bard!” he booms, easily heard over the music. Everyone looks at him like he’d grown a second head. Clearly they hadn’t know that she was Thor’s babysitter.

 

“You know the rules, Thor. No boobs if you cause a scene,” Darcy tells him, enjoying the looks on everyone’s faces as she says it. Well, except Tony. Tony nods. He knows that is a legit way to keep someone in line. Darcy _has_ met Pepper after all.

 

Thor nods happily. “I merely wish to request a mix of two songs, Lady Darcy! I will follow the Midgardian standards of manners, as I have no wish to be denied your charms!”

 

“Off you go then,” Darcy waves him away in the direction of the DJ. She sort of pities him. But only sort of.

 

There is silence for a few long moments before Steve speaks up. “Uh, Darcy?”

 

“Yes?”

 

He looks uncomfortable. Bucky rolls his eyes and leans forward. “He wants to ask you why you’re giving out favors for good behavior without accidentally implying you’re a whore.”

 

“I’m not actually giving out favors,” Darcy assures Steve. He doesn’t look any happier. “He likes to cuddle and use my boobs as a pillow, that’s all.”

 

“Can I get in on that?” Tony asks, eyes on her chest. Steve looks scandalized, and Bucky laughs.

 

“Well…” Darcy trails off. “I might be convinced to let you use my boobs as a pillow. If you do something for me first.”

 

“What?”

 

“Tony!”

 

“Shut up Steve, I want to hear this.”

 

She giggles because god, the three of them fight like an old married couple. She’s going to have to find a roundabout way to bring up how polygamous marriage is frowned upon to Thor so he can make fixing it his new quest. She thinks about the things she wants from Tony. Mournfully, she discards ‘Bucky for a night’ because Steve would never go for it. Likewise ‘tape of your sexcapades’ because again, Steve. She highly doubts Fury would let her get away with asking for War Machine being modified for her use. Then she perks up.

 

Leaning forward to emphasize her breasts, she says “I want a JARVIS app on all my electronics.”

 

Tony blinks at her, looking away from her breasts to check her face to see if she’s serious. She raises an eyebrow at him.

 

“I’ll have to ask him first, but that seems fair,” Tony says thoughtfully. Steve starts to repeat Tony’s name in a scandalized tone again but Bucky shuts him up. Darcy bites her lip at the two of them making out. Natasha is watching them rather intently too, actually.

 

Clint scowls at the table. “I need more drinks.” Wordlessly, Bruce passes him the Everclear.

 

-

 

Turns out, JARVIS has absolutely no problem with hanging out on Darcy’s electronics. Tony is a bit put out about it actually, because apparently JARVIS made a comment about how it would be nice to get asked to do something other than sort through terabytes of porn looking for ‘that one video with the chick, the blonde one, who did that thing’.

 

JARVIS is polite and helpful and in general, amazing. She gets more work done in a shorter amount of him with his help locating files and subfolders. Tony and Bucky manage to fuck the wilting damsel out of Steve, however temporarily, and he apologizes. Darcy has no idea why, but apparently he felt the need to. Darcy doesn’t argue.

 

Through all this, Clint is hovering. She turns around after getting coffee, there. Goes out to eat at her favorite deli, there. Traipses down the RR&D to inform them once again, that no, they can’t grow a giant dog for Thor to ride into battle no matter what he promises them, there. It’s kind of freaking her out a little, but in the end she decides to just ignore the entire situation.

 

-

 

It works perfectly fine until Black Widow kidnaps her from her desk.

 

“Uh,” Darcy says, thinking back frantically, wondering what she had done wrong.

 

“We need to talk,” is all Natasha says, leading her through a maze of hallways and stairs. They end up on the roof. Natasha lets her go and crosses her arms, and Darcy wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s being glared at, but the look she’s getting is rather…intense.

 

“What are we, uh, talking about?” Darcy hazards. She really has no idea what the hell is going on here.

 

“It has come to my attention that Clint is stalking you,” Natasha says, voice flat.

 

“Oh, is that what he’s doing? I thought he was being a creeper,” Darcy says back, and the bad part is that she isn’t joking.

 

“He likes you. This is his way of…expressing his affections. It‘s how we met.”

 

“That’s just…creepy. Extremely creepy. Why are you telling me this?”

 

“Because yesterday he cornered Stark and told him off for cheating on Steve and Bucky with you.”

 

That is…totally crazy. She says as much. Natasha raises an eyebrow at her.

 

“Fine,” she mutters. “I deserve that. Obviously he’s crazy, he does wear _purple_.”

 

“If you don’t like him you need to let him know.”

 

“Ok,” Darcy says. “I can do that.”

 

-

 

Never mind, she can’t do that. Bozo has somehow, in between the time he gave her back her iPod and the conversation with Natasha, grown on her. It probably had something to do with all the sugary treats that keep getting left on her desk and the way he keeps ninja paying for all her meals whenever she spots him. He’s still a crazy bozo, but a cute one.

 

“Stop stalking me and ask me out on a date,” Darcy tells him the next time she catches him hovering. “Properly. And if wherever you take me out has any sort of country theme I’m going to tell Thor I’ll naked cuddle with him if he beats you up.”

 

“Yes ma’am,” he says smartly, and she can feel him wandering away.

 

“And don’t call me ma’am!” she yells after him. She gets another ‘Yes ma’am’ in return, the fucker. Their date better be beyond amazing.

 

-

 

They go to an anime convention. Darcy has no idea how he found out about her secret love of all things anime, but she isn’t really going to complain. In the five hours they’d been wandering around with him buying anything that she looked at long than five seconds, she’d seen:

 

Sesshomaru and Inu Yasha making out,

L and Kira with their hands down each other’s pants,

Renji, Byakuya, Ichigo, Hollow Ichigo, Zangetsu, and Hyorinmaru!Toshiro having a drinking contest.

 

Clint, to his credit, was taking it all in stride, only asking a few questions. Such as ‘Those two look like brothers, or am I seeing things?’, and ‘I didn’t realize that these things included free porn’. She spends the day giggling, and he keeps growing on her with every passing hour. Sort of like a fungus.

 

-

 

They go on a couple more dates, which are all as fun as the first. He’s being, sort of, a gentleman, at least when it comes to sex. It’s still amusing enough that she hasn’t gotten around to informing him that being one is overrated.

 

Then, of course, they find out that Thor had gotten really drunk and had sex with his brother. Who is now pregnant. And pissed. Fury calls her and Thor into his office and yells at Darcy for letting Thor doing something so stupid. She says, perhaps unwisely, that babysitting Thor isn’t actually in her job description. He glares at her like he’s trying to light her on fire with his mind and dismisses them both, without even yelling at Thor. Then again, Thor sort of looks like a kicked puppy at the moment, so it’s not really surprising.

 

The next day, she finds an e-mail in her inbox that has an updated version of her job description - one that includes babysitting Thor. In those exact words. Apparently Fury isn’t going to chance being subtle about this.

 

Loki and Fury agree to start negotiations for a ceasefire, which was awesome in theory, but not so much in practice, because Loki had demanded her as the Avengers negotiator.

 

-

 

She only takes Coulson with her, much to everyone else’s displeasure. Fury okayed it so they can’t really argue, but she knows she’s going to get it from Steve and Clint when she gets back.

 

-

 

“I do not foresee us coming to a satisfactory arrangement,” Loki informs her first thing. “You have nothing to offer me that I could not procure for myself.”

 

“Wanna bet?” Darcy asks, ignoring the look Coulson is giving her.

 

“I could crush you with one finger, mortal,” Loki tells her, eyebrow raised.

 

“Ya, but then your brother would cry,” she points out. Thor crying is not pretty. Loki huffs at her and settles back into his chair, waving a hand to indicate that she should go on.

 

“I have this giant list of things I am and am not allowed to offer you but like you said, you can get shit on your own. So I’m going to risk life and limb to give you the one thing you want more than anything.”

 

She waits in silence until he responds.

 

“And what do I want, mortal?”

 

She takes a deep breath. If she’s wrong, and she’s pretty sure she’s not, he’s going to kill her. “You want your children.”

 

The temperature in the room drops to subzero. The only thing that can be heard is everyone’s breathing. Even that is soft, like no one wants to dare breath too loud.

 

“You cannot hope to do what I could not, mortal.”

 

“Well not me personally, no. But I’m pretty sure I can convince Tony to do it.”

 

“Another mortal.”

 

“Who built a unending energy source in a cave with scrap parts and a new element in his basement using only an AI and more scrap parts. You can’t really argue with those kind of results,” she points out.

 

Loki looks torn. She’s read the stories, and heard Thor talk about it. Loki loves his children more than anything else in existence. He loves them more than he loves his brother, which is saying a lot. Odin taking them away from him had been the start of Loki’s downward spiral into madness and mayhem.

 

“If you are lying about the chances of success, I will torture you for all eternity,” he breathes out, leaning forward. There is a light in his eyes, one that wasn’t there when she started talking. She could be wrong, but she thinks it might be hope.

 

“I believe that Tony can find a way to steal your children from their prisons, and keep Thor’s baby from falling into Odin’s hands. But you’re going to have to stop doing what you’re doing.”

 

“If you can get me my children,” Loki bites out, “I will do anything you like.”

 

-

 

Tony is pleased with his new challenge. Everyone else thinks he’s crazy, but Darcy knew he would love it. He locks himself in his lab for a solid week before Coulson sends her another updated version of her job with ‘babysitting Tony’ listed right under ‘babysitting Thor’. Her pay doubles as a result. She arranges a series of shut down times with JARVIS, which lets her bully Tony into eating and sleeping at regular intervals. He only leaves his lab to demand something made from Loki’s magic, Thor’s blood, Loki’s blood, and Mjlonir. Everything he asks for is acquired for him with question or protest.

 

It takes three months, and by that time Loki is showing. Bucky and Loki had hit it off and Bucky spent most of his time these days keeping Loki company. He ran interference between Loki and all the people who wanted to feel the baby when it started kicking.

 

The machine, when Tony finally lets them see it, is smaller than expected. It’s barely the size of a car. Mjlonir is sitting innocently in the center of it, the glowing cube Loki made with his magic under it, and the blood in a circle around them both.

 

“And this will rescue my children?” Loki asks dubiously.

 

“Uh-huh,” Tony says cheerfully. “I just need to put in an end point - where they’ll show up at.”

 

“I have a place,” Loki says, and gives him the coordinates.

 

“Will it be big enough?” Darcy asks, and Loki nods, not taking his eyes from the glowing machine.

 

Tony hits the button.

 

-

 

Thor had insisted that Loki take them all with him, and for once Loki didn’t argue. Traveling through the paths that surround the world is not an experience Darcy wants to go through again, but when they get there, she decides it’s worth it.

 

Loki’s children are there.

 

The wolf and the snake take up most of the space, and you would think that would make the zombie girl and the eight legged horse less obvious but it doesn’t.

 

Loki is in the middle of them all before they can blink, his children curling around him, and he’s crying. She never thought she would see that. Thor hesitantly joins his brother, and Loki doesn’t send him away.

 

“You know,” Tony says, “I’m beginning to think you’re just a superpower in general.”

 

Darcy laughs, and Clint looks between them. Darcy shakes her head at Tony and pulls Clint down for a kiss.

 

It’s totally her boobs.


End file.
